That's How They See It
by WindTreesandStars
Summary: Trapped in their own perspectives in the wake of Santana's revelation, they are unable to understand each other; each is stuck with the way they see it.


_AN: After Santana tells Rachel that she and Finn slept together, Rachel and Finn find it impossible to talk with and __hear__ each other. They are stuck so deeply in their own perspectives about what happened and why that they are unable to understand where the other is coming from. They only know how each one of them, individually, sees it, and this lack of vision and insight creates a barrier that thrusts them apart. _

_**I do not own Glee, or any of its characters or storylines.**_

_The first chapter represents Finn's point of view; it is set in the middle of the episode "Special Education", before the final scene when Finn learns that Rachel kissed Puck._

**CHAPTER 1: THAT'S HOW FINN SEES IT**

I just don't get it.

All she seemed to care about was "the Santana of it all"—over and over and over, she just kept saying "Why her?"

Why the hell was that all that mattered?

I knew she'd be hurt if—what the hell, when—she found out. I knew deep down after the conversation in the church Sunday School room (_what an unreal place for my personal nightmare to begin to unfold—right before my mother's wedding in a room with Sesame Street characters on the walls and toy pairs of animals parading two-by-two into a huge boat set up on the floor_) that it was only a matter of time until she knew.

But I'd been certain—_damn_ certain (_as in I felt like I'd damned myself to the everlasting hell of her eternal disappointment and that not even Grilled Cheesus when I believed in him could have helped me out of this one_)—that the hurt would be because I hadn't saved it for _her_, that _we'd_ never be each others' firsts.

And _d__amn _it, _that's_ what I had _wanted_.

Ever since her speech during the Celibacy Club (_what a joke __that__ whole things was, on so many levels_), I'd had a hard time thinking about sex without thinking about her. Or maybe it went back even further, to the first time we sang "Don't Stop" and my heart started pounding in rhythm with the beat and with our steps (_and how had she managed to come up with choreography that __exactly__ mirrored the rhythm of my heartbeat_)? Being so in synch with the rhythm and with her had to mean something, and I had wanted us to figure out what it meant together.

That's why I said no, when Santana first propositioned me at my locker. That's why I insisted that Santana was wrong about her, that she _wasn't_ with the tight-assed traitor. That's why, when Santana told me she _was_ with him, was talking about preparing for sex _with him_, I literally saw red and felt a need to strike out and hurt someone just like I was feeling hurt. It's why my mind froze, and I couldn't make any sense of Santana explaining that this would be a win-win.

Everything started to blur together and it seemed all of a sudden as if the pounding of my heartbeat was drowning out every other sound. I had to fucking ask Santana what would be in it for me if we had sex, because seriously, the fact that I could _have sex_? It didn't even penetrate my brain (_shut up __Puckerman's-voice-in-my-head_). All that stuck with me was Santana's final reply: "you get to make Rachel jealous."

_Making Rachel jealous_.

_That's_ why I finally agreed to Santana's fucking offer (_I said __shut up!_). I heard from _her_ that they were together. I realized that she'd lied (_and she had __promised __she would always be honest with me_) about giving him up, lied by saying she couldn't be with me for the sake of keeping glee club drama-free (_as if that has ever happened; glee is like one of my mom's never-ending soap operas_). It was only _after_ Rachel confirmed that they were together that I could even begin to consider what Santana was offering.

When she told me the truth, admitting they were dating and saying she still wanted to be my friend (_and for the first time I understood just why those words are the kiss of death in those soap operas and chick movies_), I figured that everything else Santana told me was true, too. They were getting ready to do it. Rachel, who had said straight out that girls wanted sex just as much as guys did, was going to be with that slick dude who I just _knew_ was playing her.

And then we sang that mash-up-because hell, that's what friends and co-team-leaders do with each other, right?-each line seemed to hit me with a new blow, because I wanted her to open her heart to _me_, and she was giving the key to _him_ instead.

So I wouldn't be her first. That role would be played by Jesse _fucking_ St. James; Finn Hudson's name wouldn't even be billed in the program as understudy.

Why the hell, then, should I wait for her, and hold on to hope that she would be mine?

That's what I _had_ wanted: _Rachel_; all of her, only her, everywhere.

And that's how I knew, in that scummy motel room, the instant after it happened, that I'd fucked up.

Because it didn't mean anything, because the person I'd done it with didn't mean anything to me. I didn't feel any different—not manlier, not hotter, not more of a stud. All I felt was dirty and ashamed. It meant nothing and it changed nothing. (_A__nd if nothing had changed, then had anything even really happened?_) The only thing I was able to take away from the whole experience was the knowledge that I had a weapon –jealously—I could use to try to hurt Rachel like she was hurting me.

I went into the choir room the next Monday, hoping against hope that when I asked about her "date" _(__I'd spent the entire weekend trying to figure out just how to ask her, 'cause that's what friends do, right? Ask each other about their lives, about what they've been up to, about how things are going?_) she'd tell me that she had canceled, and had spent the weekend planning out the perfect set of songs for Regionals. Or that he'd bailed on her, which would mean she was heartbroken and looking for someone to comfort her and put her back together again, and I knew just the person to volunteer for the role.

But that's not how it went down. I _hatedhatedhatedhated_ hearing her tell me that they had done it. _"It went wonderfully. . . . I mean, you know, it-it was great," she said_. That red haze started to rise again as the words sounded in counterpoint to my once again overly-loud pounding heartbeat .

Then I noticed that she wasn't looking me in the eyes—Rachel, who always looked straight at me, straight through me, seeing and picking out every thought in my brain, even those I didn't know I had—Rachel's eyes were cast down, and then shifting to the side, to the door, back down to the music in her hands, looking anywhere and everywhere but at me. And I became aware, as her words kept echoing, that her voice had hesitated as she answered my question. In the instant-loop-replay I was internally hearing, it sounded like she was trying to convince herself that it had been great.

And it was all weird.

Because this was Rachel Berry. A major "first in a lifetime/all the great plots and stories celebrate it" thing like this should, in her universe and way of looking at the world, have her ranting and raving nonstop as she compared doing it to the stories of every single famous couple to ever strut and sing their way across a Broadway stage. Something was weird if she wasn't going full-out drama queen.

Something was weirdly familiar. It was like _she_ was feeling what _I_was feeling.

"Honestly, it wasn't that big of a deal," she said, and "when it was over, I just, uh, you know, didn't know why I was so nervous in the first place," and _wham!_, I instantly felt like I was back in that cheap room, bewildered, wondering what had just happened and why I had thought it would be such a big, life-changing deal, and how I could feel nothing but numb.

Maybe she knew, like I knew, that nothing that mattered had really happened for _either_ of us, because we weren't with someone who mattered. Which meant that _he_ didn't really matter, and that _she_ knew it, and that maybe _I_ still had a shot, and that maybe we could still be each others' firsts in the way that truly made a difference.

Suddenly, I didn't want to make her jealous anymore; I didn't want to try to hurt her.

So I lied when she asked about me and my date with Santana, because maybe (_I found myself desperately hoping because it would mean I mattered to her_) it would hurt her to hear about it. And when she asked why, I told her that it was because I was waiting for the right person.

Because it was true.

And because I wanted to see how she'd look when I said it—I wanted to see if she looked like she was hearing something that echoed her own thought and regrets, too.

And because I wanted to see her face showed anywhere the knowledge that I would have been the right person.

And, OK, yeah, maybe I wanted to make her feel guilty for not listening to me when I told her he was wrong for her.

And, definitely, I wanted to make myself look better in her eyes, to let her know I was past the inner-rock-start stuff and ready to be with her, and to have her be with me, like I'd said.

And after all, it wasn't exactly a lie to say I was waiting for the right person; I was still waiting: waiting for her.

Months later when she told me the truth, saying she'd only lied about doing it with him to make me jealous, I shouted (_in my head_)YES! because I was beyond glad that she'd never done it with him. And because it meant I didn't have to keeping worrying about why she was making _us_ go so slow. Because I'd been worrying over the past months as we stayed in the same familiar territory (_don't get me wrong—I _love_ being in that territory, but I had been ready for a long time for us to explore some additional terrain_) about _why_ she had slept with him after only knowing him a few weeks but wouldn't let me past second base after we'd been together for half a year (_and been dancing—literally and metaphorically—around each other for a year and a half_).

I'd been wondering and worrying: did she find him so hot (_and me so not_) she just couldn't resist him (_but could easily resist me_)?

Or had he been the great love of her life, and would she still be with him if he hadn't used her (_I __told__ her so_) and crushed her and left her humiliated and dripping in egg yolks?

Was he the guy she really wanted because his talents and interests matched hers in so many ways, while I'm just the guy she's with because he's there. The guy who, after months of dating and well over a year of being friends, still isn't important enough or worthy enough or doesn't matter enough or isn't loved enough to share with the shining star of New Directions what she had shared with the (_fucking annoying and asinine_) star of Vocal _fucking_ Adrenaline.

So hearing her tell me it had been a lie to make me jealous? Totally fine. No problem. It hadn't been about him; even then, when she was dating him, she had cared enough about what I thought to want to make _me_ jealous. And maybe she really is an honest-to-God prude, so even if she wanted sex like she said at the Celibacy Club meeting, she was not going to go for it. I could find a way to live with that.

Because, I thought, she really _does_ know that _who_ it is matters; that it is the person you're with who makes the difference; that it should be with the right person. And I knew that she wants the same thing I had wanted. She wants (_in, like, ten more years—__ten__ more years? Damn_, _I'd better get working on figuring out how to live with that_)_me_ to be _the one_ for her. Because I matter to her. _I'm_ the one who will make the difference for her.

And then, I realize that I lied to her, too. And that lie is going to hurt her. And I am So. Fucking. Screwed.

Because it is a big deal. A _really_ big deal. And I don't know if she'll ever forgive me for not wanting her enough to wait for her to be my first, to be the one who makes a difference for me.

So this is what I don't get: why isn't she ripping me apart about that?

I'd expected to her to—I'd expected her to be like that scary substitute teacher in the Percy Jackson movie, sprouting wings and claws and hissing and roaring and looking like she was going to kill me (_a Fury, she told me, a figure from Greek mythology, which I'd never even paid attention to before because it sounded like it couldn't be anything but painfully boring, but hey, with creatures like those furies and all the other monsters and things, it looks like I'd been missing out_). Rachel could totally pull off the Fury thing—we've all seen it (_although not this much of it_) before.

Her anger doesn't surprise me; really, I didn't think she'd do anything but want to rip me to pieces for having done it and having lied about it. I figure I deserve it, and in the back of my mind, where I can't pretend that maybe Santana would never say anything, I've been thinking of ways to apologize and make it up to her and beg her to forgive me for not being her first.

But all she talked about was Santana: _Whyher?Whyher?Whyher?Whyher?_ over and over and over.

Why does "the Santana of it all" matter? Santana means _nothing_ to me; sex with Santana _was __nothing_, because _Santana_ is nothing to me.

Why can't she see that? How can she not know that?

Was she lying after all about wanting us to save it for each other—lying about what that means to her, about wanting me that way? Why doesn't she care enough to _ask_ me and let me explain and tell her how sorry I am and how awful it was and how I really had wanted to wait for it to be with the right person and how it meant nothing—_nothing_—NOTHING—because it hadn't been with her.

I just don't get it.


End file.
